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WASHINGTON | Nearly 1.8 million U.S. veterans are without health insurance, and more than half of them said they had no place to go when they were sick, researchers reported Tuesday. The finding contradicts many Americans’ assumption that all veterans qualify for free health care through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The uninsured veterans are primarily low- to middle-income workers, ages 44 to 64, who are too poor to afford private insurance coverage but not poor enough to qualify for Medicaid or VA health care, the Harvard Medical School researchers said.

Analyzing data from two federal surveys, the researchers found that more than one-fourth of the uninsured veterans said they did not get needed medical care or delayed it because of its cost. Nearly half said they had not had an office visit or contact with a health professional in more than a year, and two-thirds said they received no preventive care. (read more…)

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This week, again the mortgage rates dropped down a little. Experts believe that the main reason behind the fall in the mortgage rates is the market’s concern for the slower economic growth during the next few months. The market is also worried about housing slump and how long the market will continue to suffer because of this. These worries were raised due to the recent report of October, which explains that there is some regional manufacturing weakness.

Last week the average interest rate of 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgages was 6.40 percent. This fell down to an average of 6.33 percent for this week. Last year at this point of time the average interest rate of 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgages was 6.40 percent.

This week the average interest rate of 15 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage is 5.99 percent, lower than 6.08 percent of last week. A year ago the average interest rate of 15 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage was 6.10 percent.

This week the interest rate of the 5 Year Treasury indexed hybrid adjustable rate mortgages averaged 6.03 percent, lower than 6.11 percent of last week. Last year at this point of time the average interest rate of 5 Year Treasury indexed hybrid adjustable rate mortgage was 6.14 percent. (read more…)

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Costs are up. Coverage is down. And politicians don’t agree on the answers. The debate now raging over how much money the federal government should spend to provide basic health insurance for poor children is just an opening skirmish in what is likely to be an all-out war in coming months and years over how to pay for health care in America.

Almost every presidential candidate in both parties has come up with some proposal that promises to control the costs, broaden the availability and upgrade the quality of health care.

Health care is in the spotlight for an array of reasons — a growing proportion of Americans have no health insurance, costs of providing care are rising far faster than the overall rate of inflation, costs to workers of employer-provided insurance are growing while benefits are limited and the costs of coping with catastrophic illness are placing a growing burden on families and communities.

The challenge is finding ways to provide every American with quality affordable health care without dictating how the care will be offered.

Our failure to make progress toward that goal is causing a slow-motion health care crisis that is already threatening the well-being of millions. (read more…)

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WASHINGTON – The House passed a revised children’s health proposal Thursday, but not by the two-thirds margin that supporters will need if President Bush vetoes the measure as promised.

The 265-142 vote was a victory for Bush and his allies, who urged House Republicans to reject Democrats’ claims that changes to the legislation had met their chief concerns. If the same vote occurs on a veto override attempt, Bush will prevail, as he did earlier this month when he vetoed a similar bill.

Liberal groups continue to run attack ads against Republicans siding with Bush on the issue, which many Democrats consider a winner for their party.

Democratic leaders said changes to the bill, which would add $35 billion to the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, had addressed critics’ concerns about participation by adults, illegal immigrants and families able to afford health insurance. But GOP leaders called the changes insignificant and politically motivated. (read more…)

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Health insurance, no matter what form it takes, is an essential part of our lives. We might be incapacitated one day, get into an accident, or have to receive flu shots – with the rising costs of medication, will we be able to afford such medical necessities that are fast becoming luxuries?

Before you go buying medical insurance, however, you might want to compare different premium prices and packages offered by different companies. You can access such information by looking for free health insurance quotes online.

There are many different kinds of free health insurance quotes online, depending on the kind of insurance that you need. Individual insurance, or insurance for families, are common online. Such insurance packages will run for the long term, and they will cover a wide variety of treatments. These may include partial coverage for vaccination for your children, or coverage for accidents that you might run into. (read more…)

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I’ve seen recent college graduates making car loan payments that are so big their bosses couldn’t afford those cars.The true cost of an auto loan isn’t just the monthly payment. It’s also the interest you pay. The interest grows, of course, over time. The longer your loan, the more you pay. I recently was shocked to learn that some people are stretching car loans out for 80 months or 96 months. Paying for a car over eight years? That’s a mini-mortgage.

If you are stuck in an expensive car loan, you can get out of it.

Refinancing car loans has become very easy to do. There’s plenty of competition, and consumers can find some good deals. The interest rates I found on refinanced auto loans were comparable to, and in some cases lower than, new car loans.

But there’s a bit of a trick to this trade. That is, it doesn’t work for all borrowers. And a refinanced auto loan might be a big money-saver in the long run, but those monthly payments won’t drop dramatically.

It all starts with the deal you make when you buy a car. Many people don’t do this well.

“We find that people get disoriented by the new car smell and make a really silly financial decision,” said Allan M. Prindle, president and chief executive officer of Power Financial Credit Union.

They don’t shop around. They don’t look beyond the monthly payment. They get sold something, rather than select the best loan. (read more…)

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